Denmark will disburse up to US$90 million in official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam during 2014-2015, Danish Ambassador John Nielsen said at a press conference in Hanoi on Tuesday.
“We trust that our development assistance will support the [Vietnamese] government’s effort to fight poverty and promote more sustainable economic development. Our support will focus on green growth and private sector development,” he said.
According to the embassy, Denmark is the biggest provider of grants to Vietnam of all EU member states and accounts for almost 25 percent of the total grants pledged by all EU member states in 2014-2015 period.
Since 1994 Denmark has provided Vietnam with more than US$1.3 billion in development assistance.
In 2012, Denmark suspended ODA to three climate change projects in Vietnam after Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) report alleging the misuse of $547,000 in four Vietnamese climate change projects.
According to the ministry, signs of irregularities were uncovered in the four projects funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) in October 2011, and the misused funds accounted for 23 percent of the total project budgets.
The PWC report alleged that all of the irregularities were committed by Vietnamese participants, although the four projects involved both Danish and Vietnamese partners.
Most of the improperly allocated funds were spent on salaries and bonuses for project employees as well as unclear expenditure items, according to the report.
At the Tuesday press conference, Ambassador Nielsen said the case has been solved and that Danish officials had conferred with their Vietnamese counterparts to ensure that no similar cases would happen in the future, VnExpress reported.
In 2013, Vietnam and Denmark signed a cooperation agreement during a visit from Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang to boost political, commercial, educational, green growth, cultural and research cooperation.
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Danish Ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen at the press conference in Hanoi on June 10,2014. Photo credit: Danish Embassy
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